A Hand to Hold
by ChocolatyMoonLight
Summary: Growing up, Rose Tyler had fallen victim to believing many of the stereotypes and myths about mental hospitals. But really, they were just a place where people went to get better. Thing was, Rose didn't want to get better. Then she met the Doctor. AU.


_A/N: This story is an AU in which the Tenth Doctor and Rose meet while staying in a mental hospital, and they fall in love. Please note, I have never been in a mental hospital myself, so I'm sure that not everything will be accurate. I'm also American, so if I use a phrase or make a cultural reference that really isn't British, feel free to alert me. This story contains characters from both the Tenth Doctor's era, and some from Eleven's._

_Warning: There are some themes of depression, self-cutting, and abuse in this story, so please be aware._

_Disclaimer: I own nothing._

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><p>Growing up, Rose Tyler had fallen victim to believing many of the stereotypes and myths about mental hospitals. That they were full of crazy people, that people shuffled around all day as drugged-up zombies, that the staff where cruel and uncaring. But really, really they were just like regular hospitals, a place where people went to get better.<p>

The problem was, Rose Tyler did not want to get better.

"Rose, it'll only be for a little while," her mum said, doing a frantic 360 around the stark, white-washed room. "It'll be good for you."

Rose exhaled through her nostrils and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, mum, I know."

"I talked to your doctor, she's a wonderful woman, her name is Martha Jones, she's young, barely just gotten out of school, but I've heard good things about her," Jackie continued.

Only half-acknowledging her mother's frenetic babbling, Rose just stared out of the slightly grimy window out at the green landscape.

It was obscenely cheerful, all that green. Like it was mocking her. It almost hurt her eyes with its vivid tone. Now that she thought about it, it seemed like whoever had built the hospital had gone out of their way to make everything obscenely cheerful. Almost like some sort of sick joke/half-hearted attempt to convince the patients things would get better.

She sighed and gripped her arm, feeling the slender scars that criss-crossed across her skin. For a moment, a lump welled inside her throat, tears prickled in her eyes, then she sighed and they disappeared.

_"You stupid bitch," Jimmy's words tumbled through the air clumsily, slurred by alcohol. "I could do so much better without you."_

_She wiped away her tears and bit her lip. "I'm sorry. Really, I'm really sorry."_

_"You say that every time," he hissed, his breath stinking with the stench of beer. "And every time you go off and you do something stupid. You never learn!"_

_Rose didn't cry out when his hand struck against her cheek. It'd happened enough for her to learn not to._

One tearful goodbye, a few kisses to the cheek, and hug later, Rose was alone.

Apparently there was a lot of free time at mental hospitals. Time to read, to watch TV, socialize with other patients, or just shuffle around aimlessly.

Rose chose to keep to herself, sitting in an over-stuffed white chair and watching dust particles illuminated by sunlight float through the air. It wasn't particularly interesting, but it was more interesting than anything else she could do.

She'd already met one of the nurses, a young man named Rory. He was nice enough and good at his job, even if he did kind of act like a deer in headlights most of the time. His nose was also a bit pointy, but she didn't mention it to him.

Sitting there, watching dust, she noticed a man nearby. He looked to be in his mid-to-late thirties. If Rose's Grandma Prentice had been there, she would have described him as "skinny as a stringbean", and that's exactly what he was. He had brown eyes, a slender aquiline nose, and brown hair that stuck up in a manner that could only be described as "startled".

She found herself unable to take her eyes off him, like just the image of him locked her in some sort of hypnotic trance. It took her a while to notice that he was staring right back, in an equally mesmerized manner.

She stiffened, unsure what to do, then glanced away, her heart fluttering inside of her ribcage. Six seconds later, she glanced back up, and he was walking away, disappearing into a nearby hallway.

Rose exhaled, unsure what had just happened, only that it had left her feeling unlike she ever had before.


End file.
